Tuesday, October 6, 2009

We are planning: ØBOB

Well, the nice month of September is gone and now we are in October.

Sadly the colorful autumn leaves are falling off the trees and the weather is getting colder. I am still jogging now and then, a few weeks ago I went jogging for an hour after the stars came out. That was lovely.

In the last weeks we have been processing a lot what we want to do with the children´s magazine. The name in Norwegian is "Øystein´s Biltur Overlevelses Blad" which translates into "Øystein´s Car-trip Survival Magazine" or something. We have started to call it ØBOB.

Yes, me and Chris, my project leader, have been having a lot of brainstorm and planning meetings. And at the moment things are already looking quite concrete. I don´t like to sit with idea´s or concepts for too long time, I want to make something real.

We are going to make a 24 page magazine that will explain about God and salvation and how to live your life as a Christian. It is not just going to be text, but there will be lots of puzzles and activities integrated into the "teaching". We have have experienced that we are never done explaining the basics of the Gospel, neither to children nor to their parents. Neither to believers nor to non-believers.

The magazine is meant to be read (or done) on the backseat of the car. The children can be busy with it while they are being driven to their holiday destination. We hope that the magazine will bring the families together, that´s why we will have a boardgame in the middle of the magazine.

I am done with the PCYM, and the next study project is coming. This time I will study by myself, people told me I am kind of a autodidact. I have ordered some books about editing magazines, designing magazines, writing articles and managing a magazine. Some time in November I go through these books and study them. Some of them will be fun, some of them will be a headache.

We ordered the books from Magazine Training International, which is a Christian organization that wants to train people to make Christian magazines. I have been thinking to join one of their courses that was in Manila last week, but decided it was too much to get book flights there on such a short notice. Now the country is struck by a flood, I would have been in the middle of it.